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Show COLONIAL LAND SYSTEMS 35 Even before independence the Continental Congress, recognizing the need for neutralizing or winning the support of the Indians, set in motion its Federal Indian policy. Assuming charge of Indian relations on July 12, 1775, it created three departments, one for the northern, one for the middle, and one for the southern tribes, appointed agents to various tribes, and instructed them "to prevent their taking any part in the present commotions." There was general agreement, despite concern about the rights of individual states, that responsibility for Indian affairs must be in the hands of the central government. The Articles of Confederation left no doubt that Indian affairs in the West were to be controlled by the Government of the Confederation, but were not so clear concerning Indian matters in existing states: "The united states in congress assembled shall also have the sole and exclusive right and power of... regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the states, provided that the legislative right of any state within its own limits be not infringed or violated."5 Virginia's Headright System- Its Use and Abuse Prior to independence, the Thirteen Colonies, and the trading companies and proprietors which had established them, had been making lavish grants to investors and favored persons, and small ones to numerous less important applicants. Except for the proprietary Colonies, land at the outset was not granted for the sake of revenue; the chief interest was in encouraging men of capital to settle people on the land. Free grants therefore were common, though everywhere outside New England quitrents were required. Except in New England, the headright system was the usual route to land ownership in colonial America. It was designed to en- 5 Prucha, American Indian Policy, pp. 27 ff.; Com-mager, Documents, p. 114. courage men of means to settle workingmen on the land. Virginia's headright system, at the outset, allowed 100 acres for each person transported to the infant Colony and domiciled there for 3 years. After 1618 the headright was 50 acres for each person transplanted and for each free immigrant and member of his family. Titles in fee simple were granted, but an annual quitrent of 5 pence to 12 pence per headright was required, though not commonly paid, in the 17th century. Since an estimated three-fourths of the immigrants to Virginia in the 17th century came as indentured servants, the number of headrights was large, but it was vastly increased by the misuse of the system. Although a strict interpretation of the law should have permitted only one, sometimes three sets of claimants successfully won headrights for the same indentured servant: the shipmaster who transported him, the planter who settled him, and the man himself at the end of his term of service. Furthermore, there developed a practice of forging names of immigrants, or listing slaves. One man added a cipher to 40 in his patent thereby gaining ownership of 400 headrights instead of 40. False surveys also permitted great inflation of grants. Officials tolerated such malpractices and sometimes benefited from them directly. The abuses of the headright system and the large ownerships they made possible, since headrights were negotiable, reached such a serious point that Edward Randolph, surveyor general of customs in America, reported in 1696 there were no wastelands to be taken up because of the very large grants given to members of the council. He estimated that of the 5 million acres of patented land in Virginia, less than 1 percent had been improved, the balance being held for the expected rise in value.6 6Beverley W. Bond, The Quit-Rent System in the American Colonies (New Haven, Conn., 1919), passim; Michael G. Kammen, "Virginia at the Close of the Seventeenth Century," Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, 74 (April 1966), 143. |